


Green Apron, Black Cap

by sentientcitizen



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms, Irish Mythology, Starbucks (Coffee)
Genre: (more or less), Based on a True Story, Coffeeshop AU, College AU, F/M, Gen, the Fair Folk, warning for the usual free-will related consequences of eating faerie food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 07:53:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5820313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sentientcitizen/pseuds/sentientcitizen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ok, sure, this Starbucks is down a dirt path in a weird forest, and the barista is a little intense, but it’s seriously the best Starbucks Lizzie has ever been in.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Green Apron, Black Cap

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve made peace with my life and my choices and my fair folk college/coffee shop AU. Many thanks to my beta sophia_sol for being a GIANT ENABLER and to housemate Gwenyth for Starbucks-related fact-checking.

Up the airy mountain  
Down the rushy glen,  
We daren't go a-hunting,  
For fear of little men;  
Wee folk, good folk,  
Trooping all together;  
Green jacket, red cap,  
And white owl's feather.  
\- “The Fairies,” William Allingham

* * *

Lizzie looked at her phone. She looked back up at the trees in front of her. She looked back at the phone. After a minute, she rotated the phone. Google Maps obligingly re-oriented but the little Starbucks marker stubbornly remained right in the middle of the woodlot.

That didn’t seem right, but on the other hand she hadn’t had any caffeine yet today and she was running on three hours of sleep, so really, who was she to argue with Google? Hitching her too-heavy backpack further up on her shoulders, she set down the dirt path.

* * *

Man, this forest had seemed a lot smaller from the outside.

* * *

Lizzie was having a little trouble breathing. Because like, ok, homo sapiens baristatis as a sub-species was like an average two points up on the hotness scale from the standard homo sapiens studentis, but this barista was from some other planet where the scale started at 10 and went up to infinity.

“Good morning,” the barista purred. “Welcome to Starbucks. How may I help you?”

The barista’s dark hair was shaved on one side, and the rest was pulled back in twists and braids, and maybe dreadlocks? The black cap should have pulled the whole thing down a notch, except it perfectly offset the stunning green of the barista’s eyes, and -

“Um,” said Lizzie, faintly. It was like trying to order coffee from an extremely attractive and slightly feral tiger. Good lord.

“Would you like – ” the barista leaned forward, eyes smouldering “ – to hear about our specials?”

Lizzie, drawing on her caffeine addiction for what strength it could provide, managed to say, “Grande peppermint mocha with extra whip?”

“Grande peppermint mocha with extra whip,” the barista repeated, lingering on each word in a way that seemed weirdly salacious, even considering Lizzie’s rather intimate feelings about her morning caffeine. “And may I have your name for the cup?”

“Lizzie,” she said, wondering if she had the nerve to slip the barista her cell number when she paid.

The barista leaned even further forward, eyes narrowing slightly. “Your true name, child.”

“Bridget Elizabeth Friesen,” she squeaked, exhaling the name in one panicked breath. If the barista was a cat, she was suddenly feeling like a mouse. Jesus, that’s what three hours of sleep does to you, a flight-or-fight response that gets ‘run away now’ from ‘hot barista wants your full name.’

The barista leaned back, and smiled at her indulgently, like you’d smile at a favourite pet. Lizzie’s heart slowly settled to a more normal rhythm. “That will be $5.59, Bridget Elizabeth Friesen,” said the barista.

Lizzie handed over a twenty. Her change came in gold coins. She stared at them for a moment – gleaming and warm and heavy in her palm – then pocketed them. She could deal with that after she drank her caffeine.

She fidgeted nervously by the pickup counter.

Her full name was written in elegant copperplate script on the cup that the barista slid across the counter to her. There was a crinkly paper bag resting on top of the lid. Lizzie picked up the bag carefully and peeked inside with a feeling of trepidation, not sure what she was expecting.

She pulled out a cranberry-orange scone.

“I didn’t... order a scone?” she managed, wondering how that had turned into a question rather than a statement.

The barista winked. “On the house.”

Lizzie tried to smile back, feeling a little weak in the knees, and took a polite nibble.

It was like fireworks in her brain.

“Oh my god,” she said, when she could breathe again. “Oh my god. This is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

The barista smiled, and oh god, that smile was the most beautiful smile she’d ever seen. The Starbucks was warm and full of life, and there was music thrumming in her veins. Lizzie laughed out loud, and danced just a little, unable to help it, as she swept off to a find herself an empty table.

She pulled out her laptop and set to work.

* * *

Her drink was empty. But that was ok. It turned out that refills were on the house, too.

* * *

“I’m getting so much done!” she whispered, excited, to the girl in the cute vintage dress at the table beside her. “Oh my god, I’ve written like twenty pages of my thesis, this is insane!”

The girl grinned at Lizzie from the heaps and drifts of paper that surrounded her. “Truly this is a finest teahouse under the heavens,” she whispered back, her eyes wild. “Our hosts are most generous and kind!”

“Yeah!” said Lizzie. “I mean I have no idea what you just said but I feel that feel!” 

* * *

Someone must have changed the radio station because suddenly Lizzie just had to get up and dance.

Everyone else in the room seemed to be feeling the same because the tables were shoved back and the floor was full of dancing, whirling figures, and Lizzie was laughing out loud as she danced with a boy in a vest and cravat and a girl in something that looked like it was right out of Star Trek

and there was her barista, who must have been off-duty because the green apron was gone, replaced with something in red velvet with gold embroidery and what looked like bright autumn leaves and drops of dew and white feathers, which was so fucking rad she just had to know where it was from, but there wasn’t time to ask because they were spinning and leaping and she couldn’t catch her breath

and the whole thing had a kind of frantic feeling to it actually, and Lizzie was still laughing but her heart was pounding too and like, seriously, she was starting to feel like she was at a rave and maybe she’d had too much too many shots, because this was a little intense for a coffee shop? and she wanted to step back, go hide in the bathroom and touch up her lipstick and get her shit together, but the barista was holding her waist so tight it kind of hurt, actually, and she couldn’t seem to find a tactful way to slip away

and then she was passed from one set of hands to another and maybe the barista’s family had come to grab coffee because her new dance partner was that same kind of scary-pretty and she smiled weakly and then her new partner said, 

“Bridget Elizabeth Friesen, what a joy this is! It is delightful beyond dreaming, to dance here tonight.”

Jesus, this was a fantastic party. She laughed, grabbing her dance partner tighter to really get some hip action in there because like, hey, life is short and when was she going to dance with someone this hot again? Probably never. Hotties this hot were thin on the ground, except apparently for here, in the best Starbucks ever.

Best. Starbucks. Ever.

* * *

She hadn’t plugged her laptop in for… god, like an hour. Maybe longer? The clock on her computer didn’t seem to be working and the Wi-Fi had been out since she got here. But her battery seemed to be at full life, still, so that was fine.

* * *

Later, she danced again.

* * *

Her thesis was done. Oh my god, her thesis was done. Lizzie blinked at her screen, her eyes feeling weirdly gritty, like she’d been staring at the screen for a really long time. Oh my god she was coming to this Starbucks every single day for the rest of her life, no caffeine in the world could compare to whatever shit they put in those magic peppermint mochas that let her finish a thesis draft in, like, three hours? Four? …five? Yeah, definitely no more than five or she’d be starving, cause like, the free baked goods had been great but a girl needs some protein eventually.

She stretched, looked around, and blinked.

The Starbucks was empty. The Starbucks looked like it had been empty a long time. The menus and fancy coffee machines were gone. The windows were dirty, and a drift of dry leaves scattered the floor where they’d blown in through a hole smashed in the glass of the door.

“Um,” said Lizzie. The air was still and cold, and tasted dusty on her tongue.

Slowly, feeling almost like she was in a dream, she gathered her book and laptop into her bag, then rose. She pushed the door open, hearing the soft jingle of the bells, and stepped out into the woods. The light outside was thin and blue-grey, like dawn on an overcast winter day, but there were no clouds in the sky. Retracing her steps from earlier than morning - it had been that morning, right? - she walked up the dirt path and emerged into a world of white concrete and chrome.

What looked like a flying car breezed past. Then another.

She put a hand into her pocket, slowly, and turned out a palmful of dirt and dried flowers.

“Ok,” she said after a moment. “The key thing here is not to panic, Lizzie. Focus on the important things in life, right?”

She stared at the flying cars for one more long moment and then, her legs wobbling but her chin determined, set out to find her thesis adviser.

**Author's Note:**

> 


End file.
